


foodie

by PumpkinDoodles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, food centric AU, let's just imagine things got patched up after CA: CW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21875422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinDoodles/pseuds/PumpkinDoodles
Summary: A lab assistant, a super soldier, and a...cronut?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis
Comments: 53
Kudos: 460





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *I own nothing! Inspired by that series of new photos of Sebastian Stan with food: https://yespumpkindoodlesthings.tumblr.com/post/189770215143/winter-dork

It started out innocently enough. Jane didn’t like Darcy’s food excursions, but she’d noticed that Steve’s friend Bucky--normally a little shy and quiet--lit up whenever Darcy brought her baking experiments to the Avengers’ common area. Also, Steve wanted people to try and get Bucky out and about more, now that Tony had forgiven them both and they were all re-integrating back into life in New York. “Bucky, Buck Buck, Buckaroo,” she said, one afternoon, when she found him sprawled on the sofa, staring out the window.

“Yes?” Bucky said. 

“Would you like to go on a food excursion with me?” Darcy asked.

“A food excursion?” Bucky said, looking confused.

“A field trip. An outing, if you will,” Darcy said. “I hate waiting in lines alone and Jane has zero patience, will you be a doll and accompany me?”

“Sure, doll,” he said, giving her one of his candy-sweet smiles. “Where are we goin’?”

“We are going to try cronuts,” Darcy said.

“Say what now?” Bucky said.

They were in a long line when Bucky asked why she was interested. “Your baking’s good, why go to someone else’s bakery?” he said. 

“I want to try this one--it’s been recommended by several magazines--so I’ll know what mine should taste like,” Darcy explained. 

“Croissant donuts,” he repeated.

“I think my croissant dough is good, but frying’s tricky,” she admitted. “I’ve burned myself making _zeppole._ Italian donuts.”

“I could help,” he offered.

“That’s really nice of you--” she began, when he grinned and held up a gloved hand.

“I’ve got an unfair advantage,” he told her. 

“Ooooh, well, in that case,” Darcy said. “I need your...hand, Sarge.” She couldn’t say it without snorting.

“You do, huh?” Bucky said, grinning in a way that made Steve’s constant talk of Bucky being a flirt back in the day more plausible seeming. If he was willing to help then, he was even more helpful once he’d actually tasted one. He beamed at her, glaze on his chin, and then looked dreamily down at the pastry. “We gotta make these, doll.” She thought he might be seriously in love. 

With a cronut.

Within two weeks, they’d mastered cronuts. Steve ate two dozen in one sitting. Darcy taught Bucky to use their fancy espresso machine, so he could cut the sweetness of cronuts with caffé americanos. “No coffee like this at home,” Bucky murmured, sipping slowly. 

“Just percolators and frontline boiled dreck,” Steve said, mouth full. “S’good, Darce.”

“Thank you, Steeb,” she joked. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Bucky said, winking. 

It was the beginning of Darcy and Bucky’s collaborative food obsession. After the cronuts, Darcy had Bucky help her choose the best vanilla extracts in a taste test. His enhanced nose could detect subtle differences between bourbon vanilla and Tahitian. She discovered his knife skills made him a great chopper of vegetables. Her stir-fry became astonishingly better with his prep help in the kitchen. They watched _The Great British Baking Show_ and made frangipane tarts. He went with her to try random new-to-them NYC foods: Korean barbeque, cereal milk cake, even lavender honey ice cream (“man smell, but attractive man,” Darcy opined, making Bucky grin). They scoured the city for interesting food trucks. She almost passed out when he explained there was no pizza delivery in the nineteen-forties; a pizza tour of New York followed.

They tried wood-fired expensive pizza, ate cheap slices on on the sidewalk, even trekked out to Connecticut to try white clam pizza. He dogeared her cookbooks. She was pleased when he agreed with her that Martha Stewart didn’t salt her food enough. They took a cheese class. He even laughed when she read him parts of a Nora Ephron essay about chasing down the waiter with the pepper grinder at fancy restaurants. Darcy gained five pounds, but she’d never been so happy in her life. People kept asking if she’d met someone. She had to explain, jokingly, that she was just squishy and happy. She wasn’t stuck in some small town and Bucky was always game to try new places with her. No matter how weird. 

“I didn’t realize it would be so...dark,” she admitted, at an Italian restaurant. She poked at her rice. Her very black rice. Would it stain her teeth? Bucky looked up, grinned at her, and shook his head.

“I’m guessing that’s why it’s called squid ink risotto, Darce,” he said wryly.

“Eat your puttanesca, you troll,” she sassed.

“I’d heard of that,” he said. “During the war.”

“Oooooh, I think that’s language, Sarge!” she teased.

“So? I ain’t no Captain America,” he said, grinning.

Bucky was unafraid of trying new things, but Darcy was still a little nervous about her next suggestion. Mostly because it seemed too technical. They met for one of their regular Friday night cooking sessions. “I have a surprise,” Darcy said.

“This it, doll?” Bucky--bottle of wine tucked under his arm--peered at the big machine on the kitchen counter. 

“Yup. Steve gave me this sous vide machine from Tony. It was his birthday gift, but he’s never used it.”

“Uh-huh,” Bucky said, scrunching his nose. He did that adorably, she thought. 

“It’s the latest thing,” Darcy explained, “very popular.” Bucky looked at the instructions on Darcy’s tablet. 

“You put steak in a plastic bag and….boil it?” he said, eyebrows raised.

“It’s supposed to be really tender, okay?” Darcy said. “Because the meat is sealed in the bag, it doesn’t lose flavor."

“Sure. Sure.” Bucky poked the chicken breast in a bag she’d done as a test. “I felt better about the bread machine, doll.” He looked at her wryly. She had to admit the truth.

“Right? This is terrifying, but _Saveur_ says as long as it’s done correctly…” Darcy passed him the magazine. She’d highlighted a bit of text. His eyes scanned the page.

“Huh,” he said.

“What is it?” Darcy asked. He’d turned the page and was reading the next article.

“What the hell is parmesan foam?” Bucky asked. She burst out laughing. 

“I don’t know!” Darcy said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I own nothing!

They decided that parmesan foam was really outside of their shared wheelhouse. Instead, Darcy got him to prep delicata squash for her and turned them into thin, melting slices, seasoned with rosemary and garlic. “This is my new favorite,” Bucky admitted.

He said the same thing when she discovered champagne-laced cheddar cheese. And when they made bacon-wrapped scallops. “You’re just easy,” she joked. He nodded, smiling. Then he pinched her with his metal thumb as she was stirring some onions. “Ahhh!” Darcy shrieked. When she stumbled, he caught her. “You stop that--” she began to scold laughingly, then looked directly into his blue eyes. He was giving her a serious look, leaning in a fraction. Was he going to kiss her? Her heart was racing. Darcy froze. She couldn’t look away, but something seemed to shutter closed in his gaze. Bucky pulled back.

“I won’t, uh, do that again,” he said, voice light. “You might slip.”

“Might?” Darcy said, aiming for equally breezy. It took all of dinner prep for them to get back into a normal groove. 

But after that, they were good again. Comfortable. She was humming to herself in the lab one day when Jane started to laugh. “Where are you and Bucky going tonight?” she said.

“How can you tell?” Darcy said.

“You hum to yourself,” Jane said. She paused. “When are you going to admit you’re in love with him?”

“Wha--I,” Darcy said. “I--I’m not in love with him.” Her heart lurched as Jane frowned. “I mean, I _love_ Bucky, but we’re not a couple, you know?” Darcy explained. “We’re just good friends!”

“You don’t want to be more?” Jane said.

“I--I--don’t ask me that question,” Darcy said.

  
  


Right before Christmas, they baked cookies together. Darcy rolled an almond cookie in powdered sugar and Bucky made gingerbread men. His batch was cooking when Darcy smiled. “I got you something,” she told him, nudging him a present with her elbow. Her fingers were covered in powdered sugar. He unwrapped the glitzy paper.

“A mandolin slicer,” Bucky said, smiling gently. He reached into a pocket of his bag and retrieved something small and rectangular. Darcy had to wash her hands to open it. She was smiling as she tore the paper. It had dancing, happy-looking snowmen.

“I love this pattern,” she said, surprised he’d gotten her a gift at all. She was expecting a nice vanilla extract. Maybe a flavored olive oil. But there was something else under the paper. He’d gotten her a book. The cover had a watercolor illustration of a woman with a baguette in her bag. _“Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes?”_ she read out loud. It was by a woman named Elizabeth Bard.

“I thought’d you like it,” he said. She was already smiling and nodding.

“Thank you,” Darcy said sincerely. “It looks wonderful.” It _was_ a very nice present. “Bucky--” she began, wanting to ask if it was a romantic overture? It felt like one. A careful, tentative one.

“Yeah?” he said. He tone seemed too neutral to be the expression of someone in love, really. Darcy looked at him. His face was calm. It could be nothing at all. She chickened out.

“Did you want some hot chocolate?” she offered. 

“Sure,” he said. 

“We could shave some chocolate with your mandolin, I think?” Darcy suggested. “For the topping? Or we could make the whole thing out of grated chocolate, like fancy people.” 

“Are we fancy people?” Bucky said.

“Not that fancy,” Darcy said, looking down at her reindeer-themed pants. “These are technically pajamas.” She stirred the hot chocolate on the stovetop and Bucky kept sneaking marshmallows into her favorite mug. By the time the chocolate was warm, her entire cup was full of marshmallows. He was watching her for a reaction. “Perfect,” Darcy declared. “But can I get a few more marshmallows?” 

They sat up, drinking cocoa and listening to holiday music. Bucky put away an astonishing number of cookies. Darcy caught herself humming along to Dean Martin and showed him a birchwood fire on Tony’s in-house streaming channel. “Handy,” Bucky said.

“Very cheerful,” Darcy agreed. Dean Martin was singing “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” The lights on the tree sparkled.

“You wanna go look at holiday windows sometime?” he asked suddenly. Darcy had been a million miles away, pretending to be fascinated by the slow fade setting on the lights. 

“Ooooh,” Darcy said. “Yeah. Absolutely. I’ve never been, I’ve always seen it on TV.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just felt like adding to this 'verse as a little holiday treat! Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard is a fun book, too.
> 
>   
> 


End file.
